I work with this young guy, he’s fresh out of college, maybe twenty-three-years old. He’s an engineering graduate and is well read and has a good classical grounding in literature and history. Good kid. Sometimes we talk about popular culture stuff. I can remember talking with him about the Matrix and saying there’s good and bad about it. I think I said it would have been better if Reeves weren’t the lead. And I think that’s when he recommended “Equilibrium.” Now I think I know what he was getting at.

So, Equilibrium is set in a dystopian future after World War III has devastated humanity. Mankind has decided that rather than chance another war, the root cause of war must be abolished. If I remember the chain of logic is war is caused by hate. Hate is an emotion. Therefore, eliminate emotion, eliminate war. So everyday every man woman and child self-inject with some kind of emotion deadening drug. And of course, it doesn’t just eliminate hate and anger. Love and happiness are extinguished too. Brilliant. Of course, it’s not explained why exactly they still want to live but whatever.

So just in case this premise isn’t bizarre enough, this society also has some kind of priest-like caste of ninja police whose job it is to hunt down and splatter anyone who doesn’t take his no-feelum medicine. And of course, the Ubermensch of ninjas and protagonist of the movie is Christian Bale. He is the most skilled proponent of the gun kata. This stylized dance-like routine allows him to (somehow) avoid the bullets of apparently any number of gun toting opponents while literally mowing them down like grass. The other mission of these holy stormtroopers is to root out any remaining pre-war artifacts that have emotional content. And once located, apply a flamethrower to these emotional touchstones. So, for instance, during one of Bale’s raids he somehow intuits that under a floor is the actual Mona Lisa. He gives the order and the barbecue crew incinerates Leonardo’s mischievous lady. So, what’s the problem? It turns out there’s a resistance! And it turns out Bale is not as emotionlessly happy as he could be. It seems his wife unbeknownst to him was a secret feeler. When she’s dragged away to be incinerated it seems to have left a mark. And we’re off. The rest of the movie is Bale going from emotionless executioner of the innocent to a guy who can’t let a puppy dog get shot.

Now let’s bring it back to my young co-worker who recommended this movie based on a comment about the Matrix. Well, stylistically this movie is extremely dependent on the Matrix template. Guns and swords abound and the wire work and fight scenes are very Matrix-esque. Even Bale’s priestly cassock is like Neo’s garb in the second and third movies. The emotionless police a level below the ninjas are close to the Matrix agents in appearance and behavior. The Resistance is equivalent to Zion in the Matrix. Without a doubt this movie is a reaction to the success of the Matrix. But interestingly the dystopia is a completely different science fiction catastrophe from the AI revolution and human battery future of the Matrix. What they share is humans fighting to be allowed to be actual humans.

What’s the verdict? Well, it’s derivative in a number of ways but it is well done and Christian Bale is a slightly better actor than Keanu Reeves and there is the puppy dog, so there is that. I don’t know. I’m not a big Matrix fan. So maybe I’m biased. But I can’t say I recommend it unreservedly. I will say if you really liked the Matrix you should give this a try. It has all kinds of hyperkinetic gun and sword battles. So, if that’s a big plus for you it’s definitely something to look at. That’s where I’ll leave this one.

Since my readers don’t always stop by every day I figured I’d paste this poll on each post for a while to see what folks call themselves. This is the post the poll came from Who Are We?

… And that got me thinking. Who are the people who read my blog? I thought it might be fun to see what the cross-section looked like. If you feel like saying what you believe in, feel free to leave a comment and/or pick a label from the poll below. I think it might be interesting.

Earlier I reviewed John Wick. And he killed everyone in sight and got a new dog, so story over and he lived (or bled to death) happily ever after. But, doggone it, John Wick must have made some money so there’s gonna be a John Wick 2.

I watched it last night. I even rented John Wick, just in case I needed to be refreshed on the details. But it all came flooding back. As luck would have it, there’s an evil crime lord who has a marker from John Wick that he can cash in if John comes out of retirement. Wouldn’t you know it! John declines. Crime Lord blows up John’s house with some kind of a grenade launcher which based on its effect must involve anti-matter. John is blown clear of the house (relatively unharmed mind you) and luckily for the Crime Lord the dog is unharmed. You would think after what John did to a Crime Lord in the first movie word would have gotten out to the Crime Lord community. Alas it hadn’t.

The remainder of the movie is the body count involved in first fulfilling his debt to the above referenced Crime Lord and then completing the vendetta against this self-same Crime Lord. It is a ponderous count.

So, to review my take on this series, it’s based on John Wick being possessed of ultra-fast reflexes and a machine-like precision at killing men, whether with gun, knife, hands, head or pencil. In fact, I think in one scene he stabbed his opponent to death with a rather blunt pistol. In John Wick 2 he gets to mix it up a bit, in that a couple of his opponents are women (I think).

So, if you’ve already seen John Wick why would you need a second dose of the same? The innovation in the second film is speed. In this second outing a mere ten or twenty opponents would only be a momentary diversion, perhaps something for him to keep busy with between brushing his teeth and flossing. During one sequence he’s armed with three guns (a pistol, a fully automatic rifle and a shot gun) and he’s barely able to reload anything fast enough to keep from running out of ammo. And he’s not wasting bullets. Amazingly, no matter what lighting conditions, distance or direction every shot is a head shot kill. Sometimes he’s so busy that he’s forced to kill his opponents with one hand while reloading with the other. And sometimes he’s so hard-pressed that he has to kill other attackers with a gun that’s still being held by a guy he’s also throttling. It’s a dizzying dance of death that goes on and on and on.

The twist in the plot is that the Crime Lord has put out a seven million dollar price on John’s head and apparently all eight million inhabitants of New York City are hit men (and women). So wherever he goes, subway, museum or restaurant, he’s assaulted by multiple assassins trying to collect on the contract. So, knowing he needs help to survive he goes to the King of the Homeless (played by his old Matrix buddy Lawrence Fishburne) and is brought to the location of the Crime Lord. The catch is he’s only given one gun and it only has a seven-bullet clip. That would only last John Wick for at most four seconds. But he agrees and away he goes. The finale is another ballet of bullets. Only this time exchanging guns with his victims is a pressing detail.

John Wick 2 is full of growth for Keanu as an actor. At one point he makes a joke ( it’s about a knife in an aorta). And he gets to banter with his friends and enemies in multiple languages, English, Russian, Italian and American Sign Language for the Deaf (one of his victims is a deaf woman, I think). He truly is a Man for All Seasons.

By the end of the movie John Wick has now broken the code of the Continental Hotel and Hitman’s Club. He is given an hour’s grace before all the same bounty hunters as earlier are coming to kill him. We last see him heading south (I think) out of Central Park. And he’s moving pretty fast considering the beating the movie has inflicted on him.

So, I once again recommend this new John Wick movie. It provides fair recompense for your time and money in the form of ludicrous speed gangland killing.

My only worry is what about John Wick 3? Based on the increase in killing speed between the movies, in the next one he’ll either have to upgrade his brain and body with cybernetic replacements or he’ll have to put in a lot of overtime. I guess if he can learn to kill people while simultaneously performing his other daily activities he can get his quota up high enough. Showering, shaving, eating breakfast, talking on the phone. These things can certainly be done one-handed. Working out at the gym could get tricky but I guess he could try shooting a gun with his foot while working the Lat-Machine.

Keanu Reeves is a bizarre phenomenon. He’s been making movies since the mid-eighties and is 54 years old. Yet I think of him as basically Ted from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It’s the same halting voice and basic appearance. In the interim he has starred in a number of money making movies, most notably The Matrix. And he has become an action movie hero. The John Wick movies are the latest extension of this venture.

I watched John Wick probably a year after it was in the theaters. The premise was of course ridiculous. John is your basic retired uber-hitman. He gave up his hum-drum nine to five life of garroting and mangling the enemies of his New York Russian Mafia Crime Lord to live a peaceful idyllic life in his spectacular suburban estate with his beautiful but short-lived wife. She dies of cancer shortly before the movie’s start but is thoughtful enough to have a puppy delivered to John near the opening scene. So, you get it, dead wife reaches beyond the grave and bestows gift of love to retired hitman? Memory of dead wife and gift she left him is most important thing in his life. Check. Also, loves vintage sports cars and ’69 Mustang is second most important thing in his life. Check. The set up. Check.

Somehow, completely coincidentally and without knowing who he’s dealing with, the son of John Wick’s crime lord ex-boss accidentally victimizes the now retired hitman and starts a vendetta by stealing his car and killing his dog. Well I guess it could have been more blatant. He might have gone for the trifecta and castrated Wick while he was at it.

After this the film embarks on an odyssey of shooting, stabbing and punching pleasure. You’d think after the first couple of dozen gangsters are dispatched that it would start to get boring and repetitive. But the hyper-kinetic fight scenes are strangely fascinating. It was as if you were watching one of those loops they include with a first-person shooter game that show how someone who has memorized the game can dispatch all the enemies one by one in incredible speed and precision. It’s the extension of the concept seen at the end of the Matrix where Neo has gotten the hang of his abilities and is fighting Agent Smith with one hand held behind his back, parrying every punch without even looking because his reflexes are an order of magnitude faster than his opponent’s.

Anyway, this goes on for the balance of the movie. The Russian Crime Lord is kind of entertaining and we are introduced to the Continental Hotel and Club that caters to hitmen and forbids them to kill each other on its grounds under penalty of membership termination (which coincidentally includes death). It’s lots of fun and there are gold coins and lots of automatic weapons and views of iconic Manhattan locations.

By the end of the movie, at least John’s absorbed a lot of damage from fighting the dozens of hit men who stand between him and the Crime Lord that needs killing. So, you know it wasn’t easy. And he finds a new dog. So, balance is restored to the universe and John Wick can go back into a peaceful retirement since everyone is dead.

So, what’s my opinion? Was it good. Well, obviously, it has to be compared by the standards of the genre it belongs in. It’s an action adventure. It’s almost a comic book movie. From that perspective, it’s highly successful. It’s as full of action as it’s possible to imagine. The fight choreography is meticulous and the cinematography is highly effective. And he’s only killing bad guys. He’s the strong silent man bringing down vengeance on his enemies. He’s the modern-day Gary Cooper or Clint Eastwood but without the occasional complete sentence.

I liked it. Admittedly it’s a guilty pleasure. Basically, it’s an atavistic response to injustice. Take justice into your own hands and clean house. Scratch the veneer and we’re still just cavemen. Sure, we’ve got indoor plumbing and 401K plans but the mindless primitive lurks right below the surface. Once you recognize that, you can jump right in and enjoy John Wick for what it is. High Octane Revenge.